Marx, Engels and the Communist Revolution Between Determinism, Telos and Self-Emancipation

It seems that history has tricked the communist movement.It has cast into doubt the certainty of a revolutionary outbreak and victory in the most developed capitalist countries.Former tsaristic Russia had a successful revolution, but shortly after became a highly bureaucratized state-in many respects not very different from other modern state apparatus.This has caused much confusion about the value of the notion of revolution in Marx and Engels.Therefore, this essay attempts to rediscuss the ideas of Marx and Engels in terms of the communist revolution.Ii is argued that they insisted upon a consequent internationalist approach, with the aim of self-emancipation of the working class, and did not approve proxy politics.Furthermore, they backed down from any sacral doctrine, and persist on the necessity of concrete analysis of concrete situations to come to the most promising strategy.This shows that they were not just thinking abstractly about revolution -and that their method is useful also in revolutionarily unfavorable conditions.